His Perfect Love

Larry: Pastor Matt Vandervinn makes this observation as we begin his perfect love.

Matt VanderVen: Unrepentant congregants the individual often involved leaves the church and goes to another one nearby where they're warmly welcomed, hugged, and the sin issue is overlooked and usually forgotten. Sometimes the original church is even criticized for trying to do what was correct according to the word of God. The Thyatiran church needed to be judged and disciplined because it had not exercised one of the most important principles of scripture, self-discipline.

Larry: Thanks for starting off your week together with us at his perfect love. Pastor Matt Vandervinn's study on the letters to the seven churches in Revelation continues today with letter number four, the letter to Thyatira. Like several other churches, the Lord has something good to say. They were loving, faithful, growing, and serving among other things. But there was something terrible going on in this church as well. Join us in Revelation chapter two verse 18 as we hand things over to Pastor Matt.

Matt VanderVen: So again, Thyatira is known as the corrupt church. Since there was sin going on unchecked within this church and the church of Thyatira and the leadership appears to have been compromised in some capacity being willing to unwilling, I should say, to invoke any kind of church discipline. Now church discipline, when you think about it today, is almost really unknown, unfamiliar. If and when a church decides to exercise discipline over unrepentant congregants, and that's really the definition there, right? All of sin and force sort of the glory of God. Nobody walked in here arrived this morning, right?

But unrepentant sin, unrepentant congregants, the individual often involved leaves the church and goes to another one nearby where they're warmly welcomed, hugged, and the sin issue is overlooked and usually forgotten. Sometimes the original church is even criticized for trying to do what was correct according to the word of God. The Thyatiran church needed to be judged and disciplined because it had not exercised one of the most important principles of scripture, self-discipline. How many times does it teach us in Corinthians and other books, Pauline epistles, that if we would simply run our lives through the grid of scripture, he would not have to come and what?

Jesus judge us because we would willingly acknowledge that conviction being in scripture, through scripture, and repent, right? Repent for our wrong doing. Again, all of sin and fall short of the glory of God. But when we're unfaithful to do that, when leaders, pastors, elders are unfaithful to carry out that that church discipline, when we together are unfaithful to carry that out Jesus Christ is not going to abandon the bride. He's not going to forsake his bride. He puts a high premium on all of you. You matter to Jesus. And so therefore our Lord made some very stern statements concerning it.

And again, I believe this is the longest of the seven letters that we have to the churches in chapter two and three is to this very church in Thyatira. Now I think it's important before we go here line by line, it's a little background because uh again, things have changed a little bit in 2,000 years. Although I think as we come through this, maybe we'll realize it hasn't changed as much as many think. But it has changed and certainly with the landscape of what was going on in Thyatira sets a lot of the context of why Jesus writes this letter so specifically uh to the things that were going on, why he commends certain things, but why he's very stern on other things in regards to rebuke.

So I I think it makes sense to just sort of look at this small wealthy town in the Lycus River in the Roman province of Asia that we would know as modern day Turkey. The name Thyatira, let's just begin there. It means unceasing sacrifice, right? In the Greek, if you were to translate that name and you're taking notes, you have a pen, if it means Thyatira means literally unceasing sacrifice. It's located some 75 km or about 42 miles southwest of Pergamos. And it's on the commercial road between Pergamos and Laodicea. If you look last week, we talked about Pergamum or Pergamos, you can see directly below it Thyatira.

That's what we're talking about. That distance between those two dots is approximately 45 miles or 75 km or kilometers. And when you look at that, uh it's very close. Now one of the reasons that they call it a Thyatira or it's got its name is because as you can see, if you were to make your way to Pergamum, what is one of the areas that you're probably going to go through? Thyatira. Now just think about that for a minute. Thyatira had the unfortunate role in times of ancient of being a city which was sacrificed for the sake of Pergamos.

We read about Pergamos and how it was one of the main stays of art and and and you know, they had one of the largest libraries, the Alexandrian library that many of the books and works were taken and put in that big library. And even though this was a wealthy city, this city of Thyatira, often invading armies would first attack and capture Thyatira in order to advance to the provincial capital which was Pergamos, giving Pergamos sort of time to prepare a defense, right? So think about it. Knowing you live in a city that was entirely dedicated to be used as a a a stone wall, a a time of pausing so that Pergamos, the next city next to you, could actually prepare proper defenses.

How would that make you feel as your city just kept getting destroyed, you know, over the years and taken out? Ancient Thyatira was also a very important business center. And this is this is going to explain a lot when you think about the guilds. And I'm going to talk a little bit about that as we look through it. And we also think about acts in regards to Lydia. We'll talk about her. But it was known as a city of dying. And I don't mean literally like death, but as of taking articles of clothing and changing the colors of the fabrics, right?

So purple in specific, one of the most wealthiest colors, the purple cloth trade was known in Thyatira. Purple cloths or clothes were the most expensive at that time and special clothes of the Roman Empire. Only the highest ranking Roman officials or citizens had the resources to even procure them. And it was only in Thyatira. So you know, today you might think of fashion. Some of you, you might think of Milan, Italy, right? Which is the center of all fashion in the world. Much of the fashion that comes out, I know being in the New York area from New York you know, you travel down to New York City, they had the fashions to the technology, one of the schools down there.

And they would send so many of their students over to Milan and to some of the areas like that that they would study, I guess, cloth making and forgive me, I don't have the intelligence to speak with it, right? But they would send them over there to look at the fashion and things because they know those trends would move from Italy or from Milan and they would make their way back over this way. That was Thyatira. Thyatira was known in that area of Turkey as the who's who's in regards to clothing and fabric and and and they were really beautiful.

I I I've talked before in the past in one of the other services several years ago about how many the little animals or the shells that had to be crushed to create that purple that was used for these garments. And I you know, the tune of thousands, some said hundreds to thousands of these little creatures had to be crushed. And when they were crushed just a certain way, they excreted this purple dye. And that purple dye would then be used to create this fabric by hand. It was sought after throughout the whole world, okay? Throughout the whole world.

So this was certainly a business center. This was what it was recognized for. You remember Pergamos, like we said, arts and libraries. Smyrna had all this architecture and everything else, you know, people well, when you go to Thyatira, when you were there, you went to the fashion district, right? You went to the fashion district. So the business decisions of Thyatira would organize themselves and as mentioned earlier, guilds. They would call it guilds. And you may or may not remember, you know, the Apostle Paul, he arrived in Ephesus, okay? Not too far away from Thyatira. And he established a Christian fellowship there.

Paul remained in Ephesus for about three years. And during that time, the gospel of Jesus spread from Ephesus to the whole province around that area including this city, Thyatira. And so because of that, a Christian fellowship was planted, a church was planted in Thyatira. And basically about 40 years later, which is what we'd be kind of grounding ourselves, anchoring ourselves at the time which this was written, somewhere around 80-95, okay? There was several emperors that had reigned up to that point over that Roman Empire. But one in particular, you've heard me mention his name before when we were going through the book of John and and that was Domitian.

And Domitian was a very evil, wicked emperor. Not only did he invoke the cult of emperor worship, but he made it one of the most difficult times for Christians on the planet. And specifically not only in Thyatira, but through the whole empire. Now there was severe persecution that rose in Thyatira, such high levels that those that much like back in Smyrna when we read in chapter two verse 10, he says, you need to be faithful for tribulation. 10 days are going to put you in prison, but be faithful unto death. You remember that's what he told that church of Smyrna to turn around and Smyrna to be ready for and to to undying.

And and even Pergamos faced a lot of that too. But they were one of the things Jesus commending them, remembering Pergamos, was hey, you upheld against the affliction of even unto death. Their sin was what? That they allowed the culture to come into the church and compromise the whole church. You may remember that if you were with us last week. So Jesus likewise is going to commend Thyatira because they too were facing that emperor cult and that emperor worship. And some of that's going to affect not only physical death, but in some ways it's going to affect the pocketbook.

And let me explain because as I mentioned, they had these guilds there. Now it wasn't just guilds for like fashion or cloth making. They pretty much went forward and started because it was a business center. They made a guild out of everything. I mean plumbing, electrical, any of the trades there were guilds. And these guilds rose up. Now one of the things that was going on, not just emperor worship that we see here, but this city Thyatira was well known for its worship of the pagan god Apollo. Not so much that people definitely went to the temples.

That wasn't necessarily the issue, but they had taken it and actually made it law. So they took a little step further than the normal pagan practices at that time of going in and doing pagan god and idol worship like that. But what they did is they actually wrote it into the bylaws of the guilds. So to be a member of the guilds, you had to also practice what? Pagan worship. We we don't see that in the other churches. We don't know that extra biblically in the surrounding areas. So this is why it affects it because after all, what was this city known for?

Business. It was a business, a trade area, right? So you're affecting the mainstream of the economy in this area because if you get born again and you receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, what are you not going to do anymore? You're not going to go and worship the pagan god Apollo. Well, why do you think they're going to respond to that? What do you think the result's going to be? They're going to expel you from the guild. Now out of the guild, once that happened, what happened? You lost your business. You lost your wealth.

And normally at that time, there was no safety net, there was no social security, other things we've grown accustomed today, no welfare system or anything like that back then. So they would often would become poor, homeless and it would affect families to a large degree. So there was a great cost to receiving Jesus Christ. There was a great cost to not worshiping this pagan god Apollo. It costs you as a human being possibly your job, your family, you where you lived, the home, if you even had a home after that, could afford to find work because nobody would hire you if you weren't part of the guild.

But one thing that's interesting is they didn't lose their professional ability. In other words, they didn't lose their licensure. They didn't lose those kind of things. Now why I'm bringing that up because you might remember we read about a woman by the name of Lydia who was a a trader, a dealer, or a worker in purple cloth. That's back in Acts chapter 16 verse 14. She was one of the earliest Christians of Thyatira, the very church we're reading about right now. She came out of that church. Where did she migrate? Where do we read about her in Acts 6:16?

We read about her in Philippi. She ends up going to the Philippian church. Why did she leave Thyatira? What did we just say? If you were a Christian and you were part of a business guild like cloth making or purple dyes, she was no longer able to practice because she made a profession for Christ, right? That's our obvious assumption what's going on because when Paul meets her, he meets her in North Greece in Philippi. And what's he do? He starts discipling her in Christ, which means she was more more likely was already a born again believer and had to leave her city, okay?

In Thyatira to go all the way to Philippi so she could even have a business or you know, trade or work. That just tells you literally the cost of what it was to be a born again believer. Now archaeologists have among the ruins of Thyatira inscriptions relating to diers of the guild city. So we even have extra biblical archaeological evidence showing scrolls and writings or depictions on artwork showing these guilds and the people that would be dying the work. That's what they did 2,000 years ago. A lot of times they would use pectorals or different things like that to communicate or show things that had happened.

We think of it as art, right? They would think of it as art, but also a part of their language too as a way to communicate. So it's very possible that Lydia was a member of one of these guilds. There's no evidence from our Bibles that specifically say that. So we want to be careful, but during the Ottoman period the Turks renamed this city to Akisar. And I apologize if I'm not pronouncing it correctly. It's a k h i s a r Akisar. It it now means white castle. So it went from meaning unceasing sacrifice to meaning white castle.

And that's what it's called today. And if you actually went over to Turkey, you could see this city Akisar. And they changed the image into what the city looks like today. I'd like to show you just a couple slides here to help you understand what I mean by that. So if you look back here, this is Thyatira. I mean you could see the certainly the grandeur of the architecture. I mean the just columns, the whole thing. I mean it's it's it's really amazing. 2,000 years ago, they didn't have half the technology we have today, cranes and all of that.

And they were able to do such amazing work. This is actually a picture of a surviving that if you go over there, you see how you can kind of see this this is a theater, okay? This is where they had their performance, their events, a lot of like sometimes of maybe they would have like like what we would have like an opera or something like that or a play or a skit or a performance. They would have this in the local theater there that when people were trading coming through for business, they could also have entertainment in the evening time.

And they would go to this theater. And you could see it could it could fit quite a large number of people. Um the other thing I want you to see is the surrounding areas around it. It looks pretty beautiful and green and and you know, it looks like this is you know, almost kind of placed in this this rural area. But if you actually went over there today, I'd like to show you the next slide. You'll get it You'll get a real good reference of what it actually looks like today. This is Thyatira today. And I'm so thankful they put in Cafe Bistro so we can figure out exactly what that is in English.

But it's a restaurant. And you could see the streets. There's the boys, you know, they they've got beautiful artwork on the promenade that you know, the whole area there. But what I want you to see is you can see the apartments or or townhouses or homes as you see right above the restaurant areas. And if you if you went there, you'd think well, this is what it must look like today in modern terms. And you'd be right. The interesting point is remember that picture I just showed you with the theater. If you just go five miles outside of this city area, guess what you see?

All of the ancient Thyatiran ruins. So all the archaeological, all those things and there's actually even not too far away from this area, there's actually one of the pictures I showed you with they have like the the one building that looks like it had the columns. It's right outside. It reminds me many of you have been to New York City. In New York City, there's something right in the middle of a a park we call it. Do you remember what that park's called in New York City? Central Park, right? I remember going there a number of times.

So you'd go to Central Park. And it's amazing because you have this really grand large park in the middle of this really big city. And if you just come to the edges of the park, what do you see? You either see homes depending on if you're on the what side, east side, west side. And you you would see these big homes, these large buildings. But if you just turn around and you walk, you all you can literally find yourself in a dense park like right in the middle of Manhattan. That's what it's like if you go to a Thyatira today.

You can literally walk in and you can see all of this modern technology, restaurants what we have come across to me in cities. But you walk just literally a few miles out one direction or the other and you're you're in the times of 2,000 years ago because they've kept and preserved all of that history, right? The Ottomans never destroyed it and and so it's wonderful if you ever take a trip to Turkey or you ever take a missionary trip or you go and you you go through and you do the sightseeing. Sometimes they call them the Paul tours.

Maybe you've heard that. A lot of times when you're doing Israel, they'll do an extension that can go on to the Pauline tours. And you'll see Turkey, you know, you'll see Ephesus. You'll see so many of these churches. I always encourage everybody if you if you have the time or the ability to do that to to take one of those, it really brings the Bible to life in a way that's difficult to explain any other way. Well, this is what we're talking about. This is the Thyatira we're talking about today. And so let's look and begin in our text in verse 18 now that we have a context of what it was like at the time Jesus inspired and wrote this letter.

Verse 18 And to the angel of the church in Thyatira writes these things says the son of God who has eyes like a flame of fire and his feet like fine brass. Now this is the same Jesus that has been writing to the rest of the other churches we've read. This is the same gloss word we see for angel which again, I believe is to the pastor or leadership of this church. And the first thing he says is this imagery he gives us or this introduction is that the son of God who has eyes like a flame of fire and his feet like fine brass, right?

This description removes any doubt of the identity of the one giving this message. Who is this? Jesus. Nobody here is going to be confused or miss that. Now this imagery, what is the imagery of? Think about the feet, think about the eyes. The imagery's of judgment, whether it's brass or bronze. Both are used in scripture to speak of judgment. Pastor, where's that? I I don't believe you. Good, I'm glad you asked. Numbers chapter 21 verses five through nine or John chapter three verse 14. You be Bereans, you search it out yourself and you will see that that is exactly the imagery that we're receiving.

Now you might remember last week I discussed the importance of the imagery and how Jesus appears to these seven churches. Pay attention. Each time he appears to the church, he appears differently. When he appeared in the last letter to Pergamos, how did he appear? One with a sword, a two-edged sword, right? What about before that? He appears and he says those says the first and the last who are dead and came to life. What about the church of Ephesus? These things he who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who's in the midst of the seven golden lamp stands.

Each one of those gives us an image of what Jesus Christ through the letter he's writing to that church and what he wants to say. And the very first imagery he wants to give us or give them specifically is that he is the ever searching God always his eyes ever piercing, flaming eyes. Jesus looks into every heart in that Thyatiran church. He looks into every heart that way. There's nothing happening there that God doesn't see. And that's something he wants to do and I to know today. It's not as though we gather together and all of a sudden certainly know he dwells in the midst of his church, but he wants us to understand not only does he see our hearts, he sees our thoughts, he sees everything in between.

It's first thing he wants them to know. And he wants them to understand that judgment's about to be pronounced by the Lord himself, by Jesus himself. And it's apparent that Jesus in some way, and we're going to read in what way, we already kind of read it together, he's disturbed with this church.

Larry: You're listening to Pastor Matt Vandervinn on his perfect love. You can hear the study from Revelation again when you visit his perfectlove.org. That's his perfectlove.org. We've expanded our podcast too. Look for us on oneplace.com and most of the major podcast platforms. Well, Pastor Matt, today we learned about a church that was unwilling to exercise church discipline when it was needed, which raises the question, what is the biblical approach and the goal of church discipline?

Matt VanderVen: To Larry dance to that question, I believe the best text to look at is first Corinthians chapter five verses one through eight. Again, this is certainly a difficult topic. Nobody wants to see church discipline enacted unless it's certainly very necessary. Well, in this case, we read about a man who was actually engaged in sexual morality. Not only engaged, but it appears that this was on some kind of public display because the people in the church seem to embrace it in some way to maybe demonstrate love. And because of that, they were almost prideful or puffed up by that.

Well, this news gets all the way to the Apostle Paul and he hears about this. So he recognizes that this man's sin is being put on display for all to see an act of compromise. Well, Paul hearing of this sin, he immediately tells the church leaders to stop condoning the sin. That they shouldn't be parading around this man's sin and no matter what is an attempt to show how accepting or loving the church is, compromise is never okay. Well, because the man again made his sin a public spectacle, it needed to be addressed immediately. And therefore Paul instructed the leaders to remove this man from the covering of the church so that no longer was his sin being paraded around at the church, but also that this man might be humbled and come to a place of repentance.

You see Larry, that's ultimately always the goal of discipline, to bring about repentance, to turn away from wrong doing and sin. Actually the ultimate goal isn't just repentance, but it's really reconciliation. Remember that man in first Corinthians five that we was just talking about who's removed from the church due to his public display of sin. Well, in second Corinthians Paul encourages the church to forgive and restore that man who was previously disciplined for his sin. In second Corinthians chapter two he suggests that he was repentant at this point and that he should be welcome back to the community to prevent him from being overwhelmed by sorrow.

You know, I think this reflects perfectly scripturally and biblically the principle of reconciliation and the importance of forgiveness within the church. As we're told in second Corinthians 5:18, we have been given a ministry of reconciliation.

Larry: Very helpful. Thanks, Pastor Matt. We're thankful for the listeners that come alongside of us with their prayers and financial support. If you're interested in supporting this radio ministry, there's a place to do that at his perfectlove.org. Together we can reach people with the love and truth of God in these last days. Pastor Matt loves to hear from his listeners. Even just a quick hello telling him where you hear the program and how you're blessed by it means a lot. Email us there at the website his perfectlove.org. Well, that 'll do it for today, but come back next time when Pastor Matt will again study the book of Revelation with us here on his perfect love.

Matt VanderVen: His perfect love is brought to you by Calvary Chapel Harrisburg Westshore.